You may be relieved to learn that our criteria here was not "boobs." Believe it or not, we're more sophisticated than that. We considered hair, too.

And brains! There's nothing sexier than brains. And presence. And confidence, poise, and authority. And wittiness. And chutzpah. And charm. And talent. And success. And style. And all those other qualities that arouse the animal spirits.

We should say upfront that there are a lot of sexy people in this business--way more than we could fit in this list. We also regret to say that thanks to the vast, faceless news edifices that constitute the bulk of Dow Jones, Reuters, AP, CNN, and Bloomberg, we were not able to scientifically evaluate every business reporter on the planet. So we apologize to any smoldering representatives of the profession we may have missed.